Ihar Kuzniatsou: School books keep silence about Stalin’s repressions

The topic of Stalin’s repressions is pictured neither in textbooks nor in cinema, the famous Belarusian historian believes.

The head of the Belarusian department of the international historian, educational and human rights association Memorial Ihar Kuzniatsou expressed such an opinion at a conference on the issues of commemorating the victims of the communist repressions on 28 February, BelaPAN reports.

"Since 1996-1997 the state media has excluded this topic from consideration", - the historian said. "And, no matter how strange that may seem, independent media pay less and less attention to this topic every year. And to my question: 'Why do not you publish memoirs, scientific articles, do not make interviews?' – they respond, that it is no longer relevant".

As Kuzniatsou emphasized, since the beginning of the 1990-ies a whole generation has grown, who are 18-19 today. "And it does not know anything about those events. The topic of the communist repressions is pictured neither in history textbooks in schools, nor in cinema works, nor in documentaries. That is why we are starting today almost from a blank page, explain to the youth what Kurapaty is, what happened there", - he said.

"Such inaction is explained by the fear of any historical parallels, or the absence of a political will to admit that the soviet authorities committed crimes. But I do not see any sense in that, because the current Belarusian leadership has nothing to do with the repressions of 1930-1950-ies. So there is no sense to conceal the information. They talk openly about that in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic states", - the historian noted.